CAMEOS OF WILD LIFE. 63 



chinks ; whilst high up amongst the foliage the Blue 

 Tits are hopping about in quest of food. Sometimes sly 

 foxes take refuge in the hollow trunk, going in through 

 the front door a wide crack in the stem, made during 

 some long-forgotten storm, where the bark has healed 

 over long ago. Those few dead branches at the very 

 top of the tree were blasted by lightning seven summers 

 ago, and are the favourite resting-place of birds. 

 During the hour I have laid here in the bracken a 

 Cuckoo, a Wood Pigeon, three Starlings, and a Jackdaw 

 have perched there in succession, and during the night 

 the Barn Owl will frequently do so. As I climbed up to 

 inspect the Starling's nest, as I have been wont to do 

 each day for months, several bats flitted out dazed into 

 the sunshine, and the Owls snapped their beaks in 

 displeasure at being so rudely disturbed. But I think 

 they know me. They have seen me often enough 

 before, and possibly look upon me as a sort of harmless 

 nuisance. 



The Old Gateway a Tragedy. 



This evening my old gateway, as usual, has supplied 

 me with another page of scraps from the wild life of 

 the fields. I have never yet described this favourite 

 observatory of mine, although I know by heart every 

 rusty nail in the shaky old gate, every mark and crack 

 in its bars, every scrap of moss and circular patch of 



